Eddie Gray

At 76 years old, Eddie Gray has this physical status:

Playing career

Gray was born in Glasgow and grew up in Glasgow's Castlemilk district. He was a schoolboy international for Scotland. He had aspirations of signing for his boyhood team Celtic but then signed with Leeds United at the age of 16. He made his first team debut on New Year's Day 1966, less than three weeks before his 18th birthday, and he'll continue to play for the club for almost 20 years. Gray, a winger in the classic mould, was praised in international football for his ability to beat opposing full backs for speed, agility, and thought. Gray became a key piece of the team as the team's stature and knowledge grew through the 1960s.

He was part of Leeds's 1968 team that won the League Cup and the Fairs Cup double, winning championship goals in both semi-finals and a memorable individual goal against Brian Clough's Derby County in the League Cup semi-finals. However, he missed the Fairs Cup final's second leg due to a back injury. He appeared on 33 appearances and five goals during a season in which United scored a record number of championship points but lost only two games along the way to regaining the title. However, it was in 1970 that he would make his most famous appearance in a Leeds shirt.

With Gray in superb form, the team was aiming for a unique "treble" of League championship, FA Cup, and European Cup. When he arrived at Wembley Stadium against Chelsea in 1970, he had already scored what many Leeds fans regard as the best goal ever scored by a Leeds player – a solo run behind several Burnley players that required flicks and dragbacks as he somehow managed to get to a shooting position from a good spot to the right of the goal.

David Webb, a dependable but uninhibited defender who was ill for the 90 minutes and extra time period, was Gray's marking full back. As Gray ghosted past him, he was often left on his backside or in the wrong direction, including one run where he cut inside onto his 'weaker' right foot and crashed a shot against the crossbar. Although Leeds dominated the game, a replay was nonetheless needed, as Gray had taken the field which had allowed Jack Charlton to open the scoring. Chelsea changed tactics and sent the more uncompromising Ron Harris on to Gray, but as a result, the danger was snuffed out – Harris sustained serious injuries in the back of the knee. Chelsea defeated 2–1 and then knew it was Webb who had scored the winner in a final twist. Leeds lost the League championship race to Everton and the European Cup semi-final to Celtic, resulting in nothing.

Gray's frequent bouts with injuries began, and he missed more than half of the 1970–71 season, when Leeds shocked the Fairs Cup for the second time against Juventus. He returned to form for a portion of the 1971–72 season, when he was apart of the Manchester United and Southampton franchises at Elland Road consecutively by scorelines of 5–1 and 7–0; the match footage of both games would become legendary. He played for Arsenal in the 1972 FA Cup Final and then appeared in the following cup final, which Leeds lost to Sunderland despite being surprisingly losing. He missed the 1973 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final loss to A.C. Milan, and missed the majority of the season in 1973–74, when Leeds defeated the League title due to injuries. These injuries had been so frequent that Brian Clough, who had taken over Leeds United, began his first team meeting by stating that if Eddie Gray had been a horse, he might have fired long ago.

Revie said he did not leave any footprints on the wing when he plays on snow. Gray was part of the 1975 European Cup Final in Paris, where he defeated Barcelona's El Salvador in the semi-finals, when Gray tormented his marker de la Cruz and pushed Barcelona off the back foot, allowing Leeds to dominate. However, he was dropped from the starting line up for the final by manager Jimmy Armfield, who Leeds would lose in a tumultuous way to Bayern Munich. Frank, his younger brother who had also made his way into Elland Road, was also included in this campaign. This was the swansong of Don Revie's (Revie himself had left a year earlier to take over as England's coach) and Gray's teammates began to leave the club. Gray was the only player from any part of the Revie period at the club (although Peter Lorimer and David Harvey would later return to the team). Gray, who was converted to left back, spent his career and was in the team that was relegated under former teammate Allan Clarke in 1982.

Gray's uneventful injury history meant that his Scotland time was short and infrequent. He earned only 12 caps and missed the 1974 FIFA World Cup due to injury. Gray, Bremner, Harris, Smith, etc., had the distinction of not being paid in his career during his career.

Managerial career

Following Leeds' relegation from the First Division, Gray became the player-manager at the club in 1982. With the recruitment of players such as John Sheridan, Neil Aspin, Denis Irwin, and Scott Sellars, the club had to return to a youth program to resurrect the squad. The 1984–85 season saw a bid for promotion that was missing on the final day at Birmingham City after a top-half finish in his first two seasons as mayor. Gray retired from Leeds after losing promotion from the Second Division.

He'll be back in Whitby Town later this year. Gray took over at Rochdale in 1986, and the club survived despite near-certainty in the Football League.

Following Brian Horton's departure the previous season, Gray took over Hull City for season 1988-89. Hull managed to fall five points short of the play-offs in February and fall short of the FA Cup fifth round, where they lost to Liverpool. Hull finished fourth from bottom in the last 18 games, but poor form resulted in his departure.

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